hard drive

Toshiba ships Canvio Connect portable drive with Pogoplug

Many portable drives come with a limited amount of free online storage included. The Canvio Connect, which Toshiba introduced today, offers that and more.

The new USB 3.0 portable drive comes with 10GB of free online storage space. When you plug it into a computer, you can access its contents, as well as those stored on another computer, be it a Windows or a Mac, via the Internet.

This is because the Canvio Connect comes with a lifetime subscription to the Pogoplug PC cloud engine, a software product that works similarly to the Pogoplug Series 4 adapter, which makes … Read more

Should you worry about a Damaged Files folder?

While using OS X, you may discover a folder at the root of the hard drive, called Damaged Files. You may wonder why it's there and what's in it.

This folder, which less commonly is found at the root of secondary storage volumes you have mounted, results from the system's automatic file system checking routines (fsck). These routines may run after a power failure, a kernel panic, or if you boot to Safe Mode by holding the Shift key at startup. In this routine, the system will check the inodes in the file system structure (folders and … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in asking about the inability to format a drive due to "partition map" errors, how to determine what is using up space rapidly on the hard drive, how to restore a missing Safari program, and the options for tackling an iMac that continually shuts off in the middle of use. I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Unable to format a … Read more

Make your portable hard drive faster by upgrading to USB 3.0

The most common portable hard drives have USB 2.0 connections, which are great for compatibility, but terrible for performance. If you have an old USB 2.0 portable hard drive, you can increase its transfer rates by upgrading it to USB 3.0. For as little as $15, you can double your drive's real-world performance. Here's how:

Disclaimer: Opening your portable hard drive's enclosure will likely void your warranty. It's also possible that you'll damage the original enclosure and or the internal hard drive. We recommend you back up any data that may be … Read more

WD ships first 5mm hard drive and SSHD

Western Digital announced on Tuesday the availability of its first solid-state hybrid drive, the WD Black SSHD.

SSHD is the new name for hybrid drives that combine both solid-state storage (used in solid-state drives) and regular platter-based storage (as found in regular hard drives) in a single standard box.

The WD Black is not the first SSHD on the market, but it's very different from the Laptop Thin SSHD that Seagate released just last month.

For one, the WD Black SSD is ultraslim, just 5mm thick (compared with 7mm for the Seagate drives), making it almost half the thickness … Read more

Get a 1-terabyte hybrid SSD for $119.99 shipped

Looking to upgrade your laptop? One great option is to replace your pokey old mechanical hard drive with a lightning-fast solid-state drive (SSD). However, they carry a much higher price-per-gigabyte: A typical 128GB SSD can run anywhere from $125-200, for example.

Ah, but what about a solid-state hybrid drive (or SSHD)? These clever units combine old-school platters with newfangled flash storage to deliver SSD-level performance along with HDD-level capacity -- and for a lot less than the cost of a pure SSD.

To wit: Amazon has the Seagate ST1000LM014 1TB solid-state hybrid drive for $119.99 shipped. (Out of stock? … Read more

Crucial M500 brings SSD pricing to a new low

The dream of a solid-state drive that offers near 1TB of storage space without breaking the bank has just come true.

Crucial today announced the availability of the M500 SSD, its first terabyte-class drive, which comes in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB capacities and costs $129.99, $219.99, $399.99, and $599.99, respectively.

This is the first SSD on the market to offer close to 1TB at a cost close to that of most existing 480GB to 512GB SSDs.

According to Crucial, the M500 uses Micron's 20nm MLC NAND flash and Micron's custom firmware to deliver … Read more

G-Tech's latest Ev Thunderbolt storage: Performance meets flexibility

The flexibility of Thunderbolt storage has just taken a new turn, thanks to G-Technology.

The storage vendor announced today its new Evolution Series of portable and desktop storage devices, which comprises a Thunderbolt dual-bay docking station called G-Dock Ev, and two interchangeable and expandable storage modules that carry the names G-Drive Ev and G-Drive Ev Plus.

Both the G-Drive Ev and the G-Drive Ev Plus hard-drive modules can also work individually as USB 3.0 portable drives. The G-Drive Ev is bus-powered, comes in either 500GB or 1TB capacity, and is slated to provide some 135MBps data throughput. The 1TB … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions on whether it is possible to prevent drives from spinning up at boot, system fans increasing noise when watching video files, and options for managing birthday events in the OS X calendar. I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Prevent drive spin-up at boot. MacFixIt reader Samuel asks:

Is it possible to set the system so attached drives do not spin … Read more

Get a 1TB portable USB 3.0 hard drive for $39.99

How much do you hate rebates?

They're as bad as root canals and tax returns. A lot, but if it's an especially good deal, I'll deal with it. Don't mind them at all. They're a great way to save!

If you answered with No. 1, thanks for stopping by, I'll see you tomorrow. Everyone else, listen up.

For a limited time, and while supplies last, TigerDirect has one of the best hard-drive deals I've ever seen: The Western Digital Elements 1TB USB 3.0 portable hard drive for $39.99, plus around $4 … Read more